Andyjr1515

Ref @Sibob 's woes on his trussrod maxing out, after a few PM discussions, he's sent it my way. I've just added it to this thread if anyone is interested

While I'm waiting for the knobs to arrive for Tom's Squier, I've kicked off the initial work for another small job - this time for @Sibob Those of you who follow the Yamaha BB thread will know that he's had a problem with the neck on his BB415. Some kind soul suggested that I might be able to do something with it and so he sent the neck to me a week or so ago. Basically, @Sibob couldn't get enough adjustment on the trussrod to achieve a decent flatness of neck. I love Yamahas, but I'm not keen on the trussrods they tend to use. The love comes from the fact that ALL of their instruments are just, well, right. I play a Yamaha sax - and that is as good as every Yamaha guitar and bass I've ever played. Just look at the carve on this neck: It is as smooth as silk and it feels great! But - the trussrods are single acting and have a relatively small adjustment range. So they rely on the neck being flat with the trussrod loosened and no strings, then the adjustment is enough to counteract the bow resulting from the string tension. So - full loosened, it should be flat This is the centre section against my flat beam of Sibob's - fully loosened and no strings: I checked with some feeler gauges: It's bowed to a gap of 0.7mm. So, yes - the trussrod can be tightened to make it flat...just. But then add the strings and it bows some more and there is no adjustment left in the rod to counteract it. In cases where there is a relatively small amount of extra movement you can sometimes sort it by adding a washer under the trussrod adjuster, or by levelling the frets. But with frets at 1.3mm high and a gap of 0.7mm to flatten, there wouldn't be any fret to speak of left either end once it had been sanded flat. So the action is: Remove the frets Flatten the fretboard itself Refret Level and recrown So that's what I'll be doing over the coming week or so

OK My take on it, then. There are other tools that could be used to speed the process up or reduce the effort a bit, but - for 'reasonable' timbers such as mahogany, Sapele, poplar, walnut, etc - you could comfortably carve this type of shape in a body blank in an afternoon: ...using nothing more than these: The 4 steel things are Micro-plane blades. I have a flat one and a curved one in Coarse and in Fine. You can buy them at Axminster. The gloves are because, for this kind of carve, I find that it is MUCH easier NOT to use the handle that these micro-planes are supposed to fit into. Instead I hold them each end with stout gloves (because each of those teeth are razor sharp) and draw them, following the grain, down the length of the blank. The black thing is simply a former (cut out of an old exercise book cover - cardboard would be just as good) with the outer and inner radii so I know whether I am getting close and even. You will find the convex curve p**s easy with most medium woods. The concave takes a bit more effort if you are using these tools only. Then, to remove lumps, bumps and micro-plane marks, I would use cabinet scrapers (also wearing stout gloves!): Again, Axminster sell them but you should be able to get a set of 4 for less than a tenner in B&Q / Homebase / etc. Don't worry about sharpening them - they will come with the vital edge burr from new and that will last sharp enough for at least one body. Just recycle when you're done You would generally use the rectangular ones for the convex and the 'gooseneck' one for the concave. Again, you hold each side and draw it across the wood at a slight angle, down the length of the body (we can guide you when you get to that bit). The tiny burr at the edges acts like a mini plane and scrapes away the lumps and bumps. The good thing about using the basics above is that it all happens a teeny bit at a time. Treat it as a work-out. The trouble with the myriad of other ways of removing bulk quickly is that it is very, very easy to take - at best - chunks out you may not want to take out or - at worst - chunks out of yourself you definitely won't want to take out So that's my recommendation. However - don't start hacking wood until we've all had a chance to point out some of the geometry stuff and practicality stuff (like the depth of the electrical components!). There are some particular things to consider with double carves that are not covered in most (any?) YouTube tutorials, etc. This is exciting!!!!!

I'm pretty sure it was just a handy humbucker from Tom's bits box Sounds great!

Hi Just one or two interesting projects some of you might be interested in that I have been fitting in around the present main build (the 'Psilos Phoenix' dreadnought acoustic documented elsewhere in the 'Build Diaries'). Two of them are for @wwcringe and are similar to a couple of small jobs I did for him last year. Tom, like myself, is a great fan of the present-day fantastic base quality of many entry-level brands. With a relatively small amount of tweaking, many of them can be turned into excellent pro-level instruments. Squier and Ibanez are high on this list! This time round, Tom asked me to tweak an Ibanez Talman TBM30 and his trusty Squier Deluxe V Jazz. I finished the Talman a few weeks ago (Tom sent me a Soho Radio 'live lounge' clip playing it with the fantastic singer/songwriter Nyah Grace ) and am on the finishing steps of the Squier V. In both cases, Tom wanted the necks stripping down to wood and 'slurry-and-buffed'. I used Danish Oil this time but using the same method as do for tru-oil. I had a couple of veneer offcuts left from @TheGreek 's recent veneering job and used them on this, adding a MoP swift for good measure. For the Talman, Tom wanted to swop the J-bridge p/up for a humbucker and then move the jazz to a new high neck position. These were the resulting amended routs: Ordinarily, I don't shield the pickup chambers - usually just the control chamber - but I noticed the original p/up chambers were indeed shielded and so I followed suit for the mods. I modded the electrics to Tom's requirements which, interestingly, is 100% rotary switches, and finished with a full setup. Here was how if finished up: And then onto the Squier. Same treatment for the neck, and the last offcuts of @TheGreek 's veneer used up: Tom sent me some Hipshot tuners to fit. Presumably, they are imperial sizes - certainly, Hipshot bushes tend to be just slightly smaller than Squier bushes. Little tip for what it's worth, I use maple veneer, bent round the chamber to produce a snug fit. Maple is hard, too, so won't crush: Again, Tom's preference is rotary switches. So the plan was 4 rotaries, including: 3 position pickup selection; series/parallel; tone on/off; signal/kill. I'm not bad with electrics, but transposition is always a challenge to me - so transposing the logic of DPDT switches to rotaries took some time sitting in the proverbial darkened room! I used a guitar humbucker diagram as the role model and worked my way through in pencil to convert it first to two bass pickups and then from vertical DPDT to multi-pole two way and three way rotaries: And here is the finished result: To my complete astonishment, it all works! Last job before the set-up was to cut a couple of sycamore covers from some offcut from @TheGreek 's Psilos bass (I think you should be charging at least one of us royalties, Mick ), add a few magnets and then slurry and buff those too: When I've done the set up for this, I've got another small job to start for one of our esteemed Basschat members - but more of that anon Andy

Hi, Owen When you say convex top and concave back - are you talking about this sort of thing? : If so, there are much easier ways of doing it than the thoughts above... There are a number of ways, but I'm more than happy to outline the easiest / safest of the various ways I've done it.

And it gets even more beautiful...

I keep looking at those feature lines on the neck and scarf...in fact, everywhere! This is going to be absolutely splendid.

They are here - half the price as Hipshots. https://www.axesrus.co.uk/1-x-Hipshot-Licensed-UltraLite-Bass-Machine-Head-p/20650kc.htm I have always had good service from Axesrus and would expect that the quality is likely to be pretty good. I've used their own brand guitar tuners for years.

Hi All Sorry for the radio silence over the past few days - we had a major family get together at the weekend that didn't return to normal until yesterday. It will depend, to an extent, on the body weight but yes, I agree with @honza992 about the strap button being level with the 12th/13th fret as being a 'sweet spot' for preventing neck dive. In general terms, at this position you can usually take some liberties with body weight relief, headstock shape, tuner choice, etc.. The further the button heads towards the 14th and 15th fret, then you have to start taking actions such as: Lightweight tuners (there are more good ones on the market nowadays at a more affordable price than the good but eye-wateringly expensive Hipshot ones) Smaller headstock Going 2 a side rather than 4 in line Limiting any major weight relief plans for the body (which, of course, you may not have) And this is why single cut basses look like they look. The 'beluga whale' results (accusations you often see on forums of single-cuts) aren't trendy/avant-garde design statements - they are the result of simple geometry and physics. And yes, putting the button at far side of the heel, acoustic guitar style, can help a bit - but won't be able to compensate for too poor a neck positioning or major imbalance of body and headstock weights. So, if it was me, I would be: Shifting the bridge back as far as I could (as @honza992 also suggests above). This also reduces the arm stretch when playing a 34" which tends to be more comfortable. Then, having worked out the new 12th - 16th fret positions, tweak the upper horn shape as much as I could towards the 13th fret without losing the desired overall shape If I was still some way away from the 12th/13th fret, I would then be considering 2-a-side tuners to reduce the leverage effect of the tuners and the longer headstock of the 4-in-line I would also be looking at the Schaller lightweight tuners or maybe the licenced Hipshot Lites from Axesrus Hope this helps

Yes ^ MrsAndyjr1515 got fed up hearing about such things years ago and so now we just don't speak. As I say, I love this hobby

I can probably give you some pointers too, @owen - the majority of my builds have been convex/concave

Excellent! Go for it

Another HB fan here. I swopped the phosphor bronze strings for the Ibanez black tapewounds and it transformed it! ChrisSharman did the same to his and it transformed his too!

Great job & nicely documented Love the Brooks-1 and the Acoustic Fretless above too...

Can't add anything to @Christine 's excellent explanation. To make sure the scraper is completely square when honing the edges, I picked this tip up from somewhere - a simple jig. Just a vertical slot in a piece of wood: It's slightly springy so acts like a dolly peg. I pop the scraper in and use is as a pair of vertical hands while I run the edge over the diamond stones I probably use scrapers more than any other single tool-type in my workshop.

I particularly like the second one but, to be honest, they both look good.

Hi The Psilos uses an acoustic type single bone saddle and has an under saddle element. There are a number of UK-available brands but of all of them, in my view, one of the better ones, Artec, is one of the cheapest. But I guess that you, @mcnach , are talking of an electric bass bridge fitted with piezo elements? Graphtec are probably the market leaders - they do retro fit piezo saddles for a P & J type bridges and also some Hipshot type bridges. Even for these if you are looking for affordable and OK rather than top end, I would probably look at an Artec preamp rather than the pricier but good John East ones or the even pricier Graphtec ones.

If it's new, I wouldn't mess about with it at all - I'd just take a photo and send it with an email to Sandberg. Nothing in the ilk of trussrod adjustment or similar is going to produce what you have described.

Lovely job, Jez

For headstock plates I use Titebond. For actual veneers (0.6mm) I use the Evostick (green bottle) PVA wood glue ironed on.

There are two issues that sometimes make it difficult to pin down exactly what is going to produce the required result. First is that any residue at all of previous coatings will generally prevent the stain from soaking in properly. The way I generally check is that I sand it thoroughly, dust off the sandings and then wipe over with a moist (not dripping wet) cloth. Raw wood will immediately darken. If there are light patches and not just because the grain direction changes, it is usually that residue still there. The second is that black is a very difficult stain! And that is because you can't have shades of black. Black that isn't black just isn't black. And stains absorb more on end grain and often not much at all with the grain. So if it was green, you end up with green and lighter green. But 'lighter black'? So I'm not sure absorbing stains are the best thing - I think it needs to be more a coating product than an absorbing product. As stated above, Fiebings Leather Dye is worth a try - I think that is a bit of a cross between both.

It's an option and most builders would have no problem doing this - but I am personally rubbish at lining up such things Some builders actually rig up a false bridge and string up, then use a bone sliver to intonate on the strung up guitar to set where the saddle should be (a bit like a jazz guitarist would intonate with a floating bridge). But again, for me there are more possibilities to introduce errors than emininate them The secondary reason for the rig is that for Matt, the distance of the two E strings from the fretboard edges is critical - so the lining up of the string runs is as important that the position of the bridge. But...that lack of squareness might bug him. If so, there are a number of things I will be looking at: - first is double check that I got my jig right! - look at simply squaring up the external faces of the present bridge - get an unslotted bridge, slot it, check it's OK and then use the jig as originally planned - cut a perfect slot in a blank of wood, then cut the bridge from around it Of the above, squaring up the external faces is probably the most straightforward. All of this sort of thing is why this is such a great hobby. I've said before that building an acoustic is "a series of compromises held together by hope" Watch this space - more than enough opportunities for me to c**k it up yet!

I think they tend to be a bit random. This is a good bridge from a good supplier and is supposed to be to a Martin spec but I agree, it is more off line than I think I would normally expect. It's something that doesn't bother me - jazz bridges and many other floating bridges are usually skewed so it's something I don't generally notice. I will be checking with Matt, who I'm making this for. If it bothers him, I'll get an unslotted bridge. Mind you, they can be a pig to slot accurately which can give you the worst of all worlds...

It's a stunning piece of wood...